


searching for something (made in for the resistance)

by atlantisairlock



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: Based Off The Pangdemonium Version, F/F, First Kiss, Future Fic, Happy Ending, Homelessness, Hopeful Ending, Not Canon Compliant, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 05:19:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8237489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlantisairlock/pseuds/atlantisairlock
Summary: Tom, Roger, Mark, Benny and Joanne die in a fire. Maureen and Mimi rise from the ashes and live.





	

**Author's Note:**

> OF COURSE THIS IS BASED OFF THE PANGDEMONIUM VERSION. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW GAY I AM FOR MINA KAYE AND TABITHA NAUSER? if hui xuan's character(s) had proper names and characterisations i would probably have ended up writing fic too, because i am a heap of garbage.
> 
> i'm not even going to bother trying not to embarrass myself with this fic because thanks to crenshaw & benjamin i'm 100% sure the entire cast saw me singing along to everything on preview night from the front row. and my mouth hanging open when the girls were on stage. fuck it.
> 
> where's the plot? what is it? did i just want to write an entirely self-serving fic with mina and tabitha in my head? yes i did.
> 
> i'm so glad adrian, and presumably the rest of the cast, saw and read this fic. i will proceed to roll myself into a hole now and die from sheer shame because i can never face them ever again.
> 
> mimi/roger, mark/maureen or joanne/maureen don't happen here, we just pretend they didn't happen at all and they were all single & super ready to mingle.
> 
> title from 'young naive and reckless' by grace wood.

In some hilariously ironic twist of fate, their ramshackle apartment in the East Village burns down a year after they fight tooth and nail to save it. Some idiot probably leaves a cigarette burning, something stupid like that, and three-quarters of the building's occupants die because the fire basically guts the apartment. There are too many people in too cramped a space, so much junk in a building past its prime that hasn't had maintenance done in eons, so more people die from shit like suffocation and getting trampled or crushed or pinned than actually burning to death. 

Mark, Joanne and Roger get trapped, penned into one tiny room they can't get out of. Benny gets struck in the head by a slab of debris trying to break them out. Tom jumps from the roof - ostensibly because there was no other way out to safety, but Maureen's pretty certain he just saw a way back to Angel. 

They die.

She doesn't.

She doesn't, because it was  _her_ turn to walk Mimi home from community college so she wasn't in the building when everything went to hell. 

Sitting with Mimi in Life Cafe, watching the firefighters try in vain to extinguish what's left of the blackened building, Maureen wonders if maybe, just maybe, she'd rather have been.

 

 

"So we're homeless. Again," Mimi states, matter-of-factly, as they scavenge what's left of Roger's apartment after the inferno finally blazes its last. Maureen makes a noise of acknowledgment, tries to ignore the pit opening up in her gut as she scoops Mark's scorched wallet from some ashes. 

They take what they can and leg it out of there, to find  _someplace_ they can sleep, at least just for tonight. Mimi's clutching her bookbag like it's her lifeline, and maybe it is - if anything's going to get her out of the pit that they've all been trapped in, a degree could be it. Even when they set up camp in another condemned apartment for the night, even when she's curling up on one of Mark's old blankets to get to sleep, she holds it tight. Maureen stays up, stays guard. 

It's eerily quiet until Mimi breaks the silence in a sleepy voice. "I have school tomorrow."

"I'll wake you up on time," Maureen promises. 

She forgets, sometimes, just how  _young_ Mimi really is. It's like a slug in the chest when Mimi exhales one quiet sob. "I'm really scared."

And yeah, no shit, but Maureen feels something inside her unravel. Something burn. All right, they're alone now. Two of them against the world. And the others would have wanted her to protect Mimi, because their lives have been fucked up enough but Mimi's on track for a second chance and she can't let it slip away now, not like this. So she shuffles closer and reaches out a hand, lets Mimi grab on and entwines their fingers.

"Don't worry," she says, marvelling at how her voice doesn't waver. "I'm here."

Not necessarily comforting. But she guesses it is, when Mimi slowly drifts off to sleep. 

She'll take it. 

 

 

Inheritance and legality is weird. _Joanne_ was the lawyer - Maureen doesn't understand how any of this shit works. All she knows is that they get a small lump sum of money along with compensation for being basically forced out of their home. It's not enough for proper accommodations. But it is enough for a tent, with money left behind. She takes Mimi shopping and lets her pick out a design, and they start camping at night. Most of the time, though, they stay in Life Cafe. Maureen waits tables, puts her skill at flirting to good use and rakes in tips, supervises Mimi working on projects in the cafe pantry and tries to keep the artist in her alive. 

She doesn't want to live like this forever - she doesn't want Mimi to live like this forever. 

She doesn't know what to do.

 

 

"I think I might drop out," Mimi says, two months on, when Maureen's making them breakfast in the cafe. She proceeds to turn off the stove and storm over to stare Mimi down. "You're staying in school."

Mimi's eyes blaze, defiant. "You're killing yourself waiting tables and washing dishes - for what? For me to study literature? Maureen, if I get a proper job, like you, instead of draining our finances in school, we could have a roof to live under by the time Christmas rolls around again." 

Jesus. She's a good kid, she's just trying her best, she has good intentions. Maureen shakes her head adamantly nonetheless. "I'll work twelve-hour shifts if that's what I need to do to keep you in college. You can have a better life with your degree - or at least a chance at it."

Mimi's fingers tap against the tabletop, and she murmurs something under her breath. Maureen strains, just manages to catch it.  _"La vie boheme."_

It seems like a lifetime ago, being in this very cafe, standing on the tables screaming bloody murder at Benny and defending her art, her world, her home. A lifetime ago that they were all together, so damn ready to fight for themselves, to win. _La vie boheme_ indeed. She remembers accusing Benny, and then Mark, of selling out. She thinks they would laugh if they saw her now, selling out in her own way. 

It's not that she wants to.

But when she looks at Mimi, she thinks it might be worth it.

So she plants her feet and keeps her glare steady. "This is _Calcutta,_ and you're keeping your books."

Mimi glares back, but keeps going to her classes anyway. 

 

 

Their nights stay sleepless, six months after the fire. Maureen wakes up sometimes to the sounds of Mimi whimpering and thrashing on her side of their tent, gasping out the names of their friends like she's choking on smoke. She always has to crawl over, shake her a little, cradle her and snap her out of her sleep before Mimi returns to reality and can breathe again. It's always the same dream - watching them die, consumed by the flames and the heat. 

"Sometimes I think we should have died along with them," Mimi confesses, one night, when the autumn chill is beginning to set in. She's leaning into Maureen and trying to stop her tears. "Sometimes I think it would be easier."

Maureen thinks that a lot, but hell if she's going to tell Mimi that. Instead, she shakes her shoulders and speaks to her sternly. "You think they'd want to hear you say that? Remember when you almost died in the loft, and Angel told you to come back?"

Mimi nods, but doesn't seem convinced. "I don't know why we're here, Maureen. This world, New York, it sucks."

And Maureen manages to smile. "Once you're done with college, we'll get out of here," she promises, her voice going low and soothing. "We can go to Santa Fe... like Roger and Tom and Angel were going to do. Maybe we'll open up a restaurant like they wanted, too. Something like Life Cafe, somewhere where people like us can seek refuge. How does that sound?"

She's beginning to nod off in her arms, and Maureen begins to unconsciously stroke her hair as Mimi responds, drowsy. "We should probably try and serve better fries than they do at Life." 

"Okay," Maureen laughs throatily, and presses a brief kiss to Mimi's forehead. "We'll do that."

She holds her for the rest of the night, falls asleep like that. It should be uncomfortable, especially considering how the temperature is starting to fall, but somehow, it feels right. And she can't find it in herself to feel guilty about it.

 

 

She still walks Mimi from college back to Life every day without fail, and on the last day before winter break, there are a bunch of kids on the quad who wolf-whistle at both of them, catcall things that make Maureen want to send her fist flying into their faces. 

"Is that your  _girlfriend,_ Marquez?" One of them jeers, twisting the word  _girlfriend_ on his tongue like it tastes sour, and Maureen's  _this_ close to rolling up her sleeves when Mimi catches her eye, pulls her in close, kisses her full on the mouth in front of a quad full of people.

Maureen hasn't kissed like that in a long, long time, hands too full with trying to stay alive, and it's like an electric shock down her spine. She can taste salt, a hint of cherry maybe, warmth, can feel Mimi sliding her hands into her hair and keeping her flush against her own slight frame. The kids are raising an uproar, she thinks, but the noise of the world around them is fading, and all she can see, feel, breathe is  _her._

 

 

They don't get kicked off the college green per se, but pretty much. Mimi still walks home breathless and grinning, cheeks flushed red, and it's not lost on Maureen how she might have kissed her on the spur of the moment just to mess with those kids' heads but her hand is firmly tucked in Maureen's anyway. 

"You shouldn't do things like that," Maureen tells her as they pace down the pavement, but her voice is wavering and Mimi's always known her well. The younger girl turns to her with this expression that's so bright, so much brighter than she's seen it in a while. "But I wanted to."

They stop right there. Maureen looks at Mimi, really  _looks,_ and Mimi looks back. 

Two of them against the world. 

"We're still going to be on the streets this Christmas," she tells Mimi, not sure exactly what she's saying, and Mimi tosses her head back, laughs, slings her arms around Maureen's neck and kisses her again in the middle of the pavement. "We can make it."

She manages to smile, manages to believe it. It's hard not to when Mimi's kissing her like that. "Okay, we can make it."

It's not going to get easier, and she knows that. The cops might come raze their tent city tomorrow, or Life Cafe could get shut down, or maybe Mimi's college is going to throw her out because this is not yet a New York that loves them for the people they are, but maybe right now, maybe today, they can make it. 

And there's no day but today, right?

Maureen slides her arms around Mimi's waist, leans in to press her forehead against Mimi's. "Let's go home."

 

 

Maybe, just maybe, in the distance she can hear something - Christmas bells, the whirr of a projector, Angel's voice:  _good going, girlfriend._

And they're going to make it.

They are.


End file.
